Golda Meir (Hebrew: גּוֹלְדָּה מֵאִיר) Golda Mabovitz; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was one of the founders of the State of Israel. She served as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17, 1969 to April 11, 1974. Golda Meir was the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics years before the epithet was coined for Margaret Thatcher. David Ben-Gurion once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet." She is the first (and to date only) female Prime Minister of Israel, and was the third female Prime Minister in the world

She was born as Golda Mabovitz in Kiev in the Ukraine, then part of Imperial Russia, to Blume Naidtich and Moshe Mabovitz. She wrote in her autobiography that her earliest memories were of her father boarding up the front door in response to rumors of an imminent pogrom. Living conditions in the Pale of Settlement were tough; she and her two sisters (Sheyna and Tzipke) were often hungry and cold. Her other five siblings had died in their childhood. Golda especially looked up to Sheyna. Her father left for the United States in 1903. In the following years the rest of the family stayed in Pinsk and Golda's big sister Sheyna was engaged in Zionist-Revolutionary activity, which endangered her. It impressed young Golda very much and urged on the rest of the family to follow Moshe to the United States in 1906.